Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday November 10, 2011 @11:29PM
from the get-them-while-they're-hot dept.

zacharye writes "Amazon's upcoming Kindle Fire could be the hottest tablet on the market this holiday season, with demand that may even surpass Apple's blockbuster slate, the iPad 2. Results from a recent survey published by electronics shopping guide Retrevo.com suggest that more consumers are interested in purchasing Amazon's upcoming tablet than Apple's tried and true iPad. As a result, the site speculates that the Kindle Fire represents Apple's first real competition in the tablet space."

I'd suggest that apple should make a 7" tablet so they can compete at the same price point. But maybe it would be better to wait and see what the user experience is like on these. It seems like it would be too small.

From TFA: Retrevo’s Andrew Eisner wrote on a company blog. “As popular as the Kindle Fire appears in this study, whether it lives up to expectations on things like battery life, performance, image quality, etc, the picture could get brighter or less bright for the Kindle Fire.”

The picture could get brighter OR less bright for the Kindle Fire. Yep. That's a clear viewpoint.

"...27% said they would upgrade to a Kindle Fire..."

I don't know if you can "upgrade" to a Fire, unless they're counting current Kindle e-ink owners in the mix. I own an iPad AND I'm buying a Fire to dink around with. $199 is cheap enough that surely I can find some use for it, if only to keep in the bathroom... (grin)

The reason Roku & AppleTV are so cheap is that they don't have a display, lithium battery, or enough flash to store content. You want high res display, capacitive touch screen, storage, and portability, you are not going to pay $200 any time soon.

Even the Kindle Fire is a loss leader. It will never be as flexible as an iPad because that way Amazon would never make their money back.

They run it as an at-cost loss leader. Amazon has great streaming selection but a crappy tablet, so they subsidize the tablet. Apple has a great tablet but doesn't offer streaming as a complementing option, so the subsidize the things they do offer.

Amazon produces a Kindle app for almost every platform, which ensures that the Kindle eBook marketplace is dominant. But buying an actual Kindle device limits you to the Kindle eBook marketplace.

The Kindle App is the single app I use most on my iPad (but far from the most used app as I am not the only user), but it is far easier to get an epub or PDF onto an iPad (and into the Apple iBooks) than it is to do the same on a Kindle device. I can get on to Safari Books Online (O'Reilly's eBook website) through my employer's proxy server. My iPad is an amazing programming partner - the best reference source I have ever had. It is worth the extra money to have all of those extra book sources. (I think Android tables can do this as well, I'm arguing against the Kindle and not specifically FOR the iPad)

Put another way, after using it for awhile, I can still sell my Macbook with a core 2 duo, buy your ASUS Sandy Bridge i5, and have change to spare. Macs are that expensive if you resell them a year or two after you buy them.

Since the only thing Apple has done that has been successfully predicted over the last decade is make money hand over fist, I I think they are doing just fine. Much better than most militaries these days.

I wouldn't. The Toyota Corolla is a wellmade car for my purpose within a sweet spot between cost and value. The BMW M1 has not enough space on the back seats, not enough trunk space, is too expensive to insure, and costs too much taxes. It offers not even enough extra to remediate that at the same price level, let alone with the big price tag it comes with. The BMW M1 is for people who already have a car for their daily needs and who are looking for a toy to play with.